Just a Head

The insides of my eyelids are dark, unassuming. Nothing but a thin strip of skin shading me from the outside world. My pupils are projectors, like the old ones you see in your grandparents house or at the movies. They project images on the fleshy screens before them. My brain sits in the background in a purple leather chair, ready, waiting. Popcorn pops in “Just ahead theater,” and the main attraction comes ever closer.

As the lights dim, a sketchy 3... 2... 1 beeped out in countdown flashes before me. Pictures and images constantly; some real memories, others only real within the confines of my skull.

A young girl holds a baby in her arms and looks up at her mother happily. Five young children construct a movie in a driveway. Two girls sing upon a tiled floor, one in green one in white. The same two girls push each other down the halls of a high school in a rolling desk chair. A teenage girl leads a boy through an amusement park as he says, “Trippy,” at regular intervals. Four girls barrel role through a school hallway singing “Secret ‘Asian’ Man” quietly with their sunglasses on. Pregnant stretches are seen, as is a problem circle, and a girl in a play dressed as Herod, a gender confused male. A picture of Obama sits in a window as ten teens lie in the grass below. Girls blow bubbles on a lake, neighbors play Ultimate Frisbee and a girl sits on her front steps typing a story. Leaves fly overhead, turns into snow, and a mother and daughter dance in the rain while singing at the top of their lungs.

The pictures fade out until the screens are again just fleshy remains of a life’s show. The projectors calm, and are still. The purple chair dissipates and in its place is a swaying hammock hooked by my ears. Then everything is dark and my deep breathing fills the otherwise silent room.

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